


Look to the Future Now

by Luka



Series: University AU [11]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 14:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19253506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luka/pseuds/Luka
Summary: It’s the week before Christmas at CMU and Ryan is having a day he’d rather forget.





	Look to the Future Now

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Primeval Denial Secret Santa for goldarrow, who gave the following prompts:  
> 1\. Thursday the 14th, I spent the morning in anxiety, the afternoon in ecstasy, and the evening unconscious.  
> 2\. Walk with me through the long and lonely night.  
> Walk with me, and my world is fill'd with light.  
> 3\. Far away from your land of endless sunshine  
> To my land full of rainy skies and gales.  
> 4\. If you get the consonants right, the vowels take care of themselves.
> 
> Ditzy and Norman appear by kind permission of fredbassett, who also came up with the concept of URS! The story is the latest instalment in the university AU series, which was devised by the very cunning rain_sleet_snow.
> 
> If you want to read Rain_sleet_snow's stories, she has them on her AO3 account under the Smart People series tag. To avoid confusion, I'm going to name my series as University AU. Original, or what! The stories are gen ones in a slash universe.

To quote one of Sarah Page’s favourite expressions, Tom Ryan’s Friday had sucked more than a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

The last week of the Christmas term was always fraught. Students were alternately throwing luvvie tantrums over their assignments as well as planning their skiing trips that would inevitably see them miss the first week of term in January. Mad Professor Cutter’s not entirely inaccurate theory was that the university was over-run with sweet but dim Lucindas from Godalming, who either missed lectures because their horse was being shod or because Mummy and Daddy were taking them to Chamonix to improve their downhill techniques.

“When I find the blithering idiot who planned a validation visit in the last week of term, I’ll shake them warmly by the throat,” said Lester tiredly. He accepted a cup of Earl Grey tea from Ryan with a grateful smile and spread marmalade thickly on his wholemeal toast.

Ryan had heard the saga from Dave Owen first hand, and knew the nursing big cheeses were very particular about validation visits to universities – and that they didn’t let minor details like end of term and festive celebrations stand in their way.

“Dave had the whole thing planned with military precision, if you’ll excuse the expression,” said Ryan, reaching for a second slice of toast.

“Oh, I have the utmost faith in David. I’m less sanguine about the students, who the visitors no doubt wished to talk to.”

“I’ll phone him when I get to work to find out how it went.”

There was a silence. Ryan dumped the crockery in the dishwasher and picked up his rucksack. “I’ll see you later,” he said.

Lester nodded. But his eyes didn’t quite meet Ryan’s.

*~*~*~*

Ryan plonked himself down at his desk and reflected that neither he nor Lester had mentioned the elephant in the room since the previous evening – the letter Lester had received inviting him for interview in the new year for the post of vice-chancellor at a university at least 30 places above CMU in the league tables. Ryan had known it was only a matter of time before his partner moved onto greater things. He’d go with him, of course he would, be it would be a wrench. For the first time in his life, Ryan felt like he belonged somewhere. His army career had been successful but meant he was frequently uprooted. CMU was different – he had close friends around him, particularly Dave and Stephen. And he had people who cared about him – whenever Lester was away on business, a rota of people, including Jenny, Claudia, Lorraine and Sarah, invited him for supper or organised meals out for their social group.

Ryan sighed, and added another line to the stiff email he was composing to send to the chief fire officer. He’d known that the station manager at the local fire station was a blithering idiot – but the guy had raised the stakes to gold medal-winning levels that morning.

Ryan had arrived on campus just before 7.30am to find scary Davina Bowie from Sport standing beneath a large tree and haranguing someone at great length. Ryan had looked up and spotted a clearly very hung-over sports student perched precariously on a branch. It turned out he’d clambered up there the night before on his way home from the pub, and fallen asleep on his perch. He’d woken up with a start and realised he was stuck.

The fire brigade – regular visitors to the campus when it came to dealing with false alarms in the student halls (for which they charged a call-out fee somewhere around the weekly wage of a Premiership footballer) – had been summoned. Half an hour later, when there was still no sign of them, Ryan had phoned again, and been told the crew were at the town’s Further Education college on the opposite side of town, laboriously checking every tree. Ryan’s acid comment that it was a good job there was no fire hadn’t been appreciated.

A light tap on the door announced the arrival of Stephen Hart with two large cups of coffee from the place across the road that produced drinkable beverages rather than the dishwater beloved of the campus’ mad Polish chef. It had become their daily routine, where possible, to meet up first thing over a cup of coffee. Stephen wasn’t the most talkative companion around, but Ryan had started to bring him out of his shell, and they would chat casually about sport and films. Ryan’s view was that Stephen could do far better for himself both professionally and personally than research assistant to mad Professor Cutter, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

Stephen had heard about the morning’s escapade, and checked over the email to the chief fire officer before Ryan sent it winging its way into the ether. Ryan, who’d loathed completing reports both at Sandhurst and in the army, would be the first to admit that he was one of the few people whose grammar and punctuation was improved by the vagaries of predictive text.

A text message pinged onto Ryan’s phone. He glanced at it – it was from Dave. His messages were all verbose and immaculately punctuated – unlike Ryan’s.  
 __  
– Good morning, captain my captain!  
– U ok?  
– Hale, hearty and about to tuck into a cooked brekkie.  
– All ok y’day?  
– Thursday the 14th, I spent the morning in anxiety, the afternoon in ecstasy, and the evening unconscious.  
– So panel happy?  
– All more tickety-boo than a tickety-boo thing!  
– Gr8! Pint 2nite?  
– You bet! Catch you later.  
  
Stephen was looking at his watch and muttering about tutorials, so he and Ryan set off across the campus. Ryan had a very large bone to pick with the head of art and design. But their progress was impeded by yells, shouts and curses as a crowd spilled out from inside the social sciences block. Three OAPs – two women and an old geezer – were laying into each other with walking sticks and handbags. Worried social work first years were trying to separate them as the course leader fluttered ineffectually. 

Ryan reached into the throng and hauled out a young man dressed in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, and wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses. The student was the course rep for Social Work and even though he looked like a cliché waiting to happen in his chosen field, he was a good lad. Ryan knew him through one of the university committees where his thoughtful contributions had got him noticed in all the right places.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Malcolm sighed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “The role-playing exercise has got out of hand again. We were supposed to be taking case studies from them, but it kicked off into World War III. Would you believe they’re all retired social workers? I don’t know where Linden finds them.”

Ryan glanced across at the course leader, who was now doing a dying swan impersonation with his hand pressed to his forehead, and resisted the temptation to comment that the guy couldn’t find his arse with both hands, a torch and a roadmap.

The fracas appeared to be quietening down, so Ryan interceded and dished out a few well-chosen words about setting a good example to the students. He then delegated Malcolm to take the over-enthusiastic visitors to the refectory and calm them down with cups of herbal tea.

“You’ll make a diplomat yet,” said Stephen.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I was beginning to feel like a social worker!”

The quickest way to Stephen’s office and the art department was to take a crafty short cut through the Humanities building. As they reached the second floor, a door flew open and shrieks emanated from the room.

“Second year theology and too many E numbers,” said Stephen enigmatically.

“What?”

“They’re high on Coke and sweets. You can’t blame them really, as the tutor’s a crashing bore. Cutter barged in on them a few months back when it sounded like someone was being garrotted. He ended up staying to argue about creationism. The students apparently loved him, but the bore complained to the dean.”

A bloke who resembled an Old Testament prophet appeared in the doorway, glared at them both, then pointedly slammed the door. The noise singularly failed to muffle both the hyperactive theology students and a rousing chorus of The Red Flag from two doors down. Ryan glanced through the small window in the door – it was the trainee teachers. Red Rick, mullet hairstyle immaculately styled, looked up and gave Ryan a cheery wave. He was an amiable guy, but seemed to think he was still living in the 1970s.

“I suppose that’s one way to entertain the visitors from Russia,” said Stephen dryly.

Their ways parted on the third floor and they arranged to play squash the next morning before work. 

Ryan sighed as he approached the art block. He’d spent the previous afternoon fielding irate phone calls from half of the town on the subject of the art students and their latest assignment. One lot had been ejected from a train three stops down the line after all dressing up as ticket inspectors and serenading the passengers in best barbershop choir mode. A second group had been persuaded to put their clothes back on and stop doing the foxtrot (albeit not one the Strictly Come Dancing judges would recognise) outside the town hall. And a third bunch had settled down at a table in the furniture department in Debenham’s to eat their lunch off china plates which they’d brought in especially, much to the consternation of the security guards. Who knew that all this counted as installation art? Ryan cracked his knuckles. He was looking forward to a good row.

~*~*~*~

By mid afternoon, Ryan was desperate for something to eat. After going round in circles with the new head of art, who truly was away with the fairies and thought the students’ escapades to be inspired and deserving of top marks, he’d spent an hour trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious alarms sounding in Philip Burton’s new empire. He was getting increasingly riled, as the man himself never seemed to be there, and the ghastly April Leonard could stonewall for England.

He’d had no luck nosing around on URS, the university rumour system, which was clearly modelled on Snopes. No one knew who was behind it, although Connor Temple’s name cropped up often, but it was an indispensible way of checking what was going on at CMU – and more often than not was right. Ryan was faintly gratified to see that there was no mention of Lester’s impending job interview.

The only sign of the refectory’s festive lunch was a stray Brussels sprout and a half-jug of gravy with a spoon standing vertically in it. Ryan liberated a bottle of water and a tired-looking Greek salad wrap, and looked around the almost empty room, which sported an apology for a Christmas tree, and the Greatest Hits of Xmas CD on constant repeat mode. He frowned at the sight of Stephen, Niall Richards, Dave and Hilary Becker hunched over a table in the far corner. Dave glanced up, waved airily at Ryan and returned to the intense conversation. It was obvious his presence wasn’t required. 

Ryan took the hint, gathered his purchases and made rapidly for the basement. He was one of the few privileged enough to be made welcome in Norman’s lair.

Norman took one look at Ryan’s face, muttered gnomically about transfiguration and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and passed him a mug of tea so strong you could have cut it with one of Niall’s knives. Ryan’s heartfelt thanks were rewarded with a grunt, two of the mysterious Mrs Norman’s sublime pieces of shortbread, and a top-up of tea.

Norman didn’t seem in the least surprised by Ryan’s trials and tribulations with the art department, opining that that lot didn’t know which side their arses hung. Ryan hadn’t got the faintest idea what this cryptic comment meant, but it sounded about right.

Conversation, such as it was, got around to Burton. A litany of abuse followed from Norman, seeming to focus on the Pope, John the Baptist and shovelling shit at high speed.

“You want to ‘ave a word with Cutter’s lad and ‘im from the library.”

“Stephen? And Hilary Becker? What have they got to do with it?”

Norman sniffed imposingly. “And that young idiot with them knives. I’d ‘ave his guts for garters …”

“Niall?” 

“Only one of them with a scrap of sense is that young lass from Computing?”

“Jess Parker?” Ryan was thoroughly bemused by now. She was an adorable little thing, but he knew very well that Niall scared her senseless.

Norman’s craggy face softened slightly. “Aye. She’s a good ‘un.”

Ryan could feel a humdinger of a headache descending, leaving him with no chance of working out what Burton, Jess and the lads all had to do with the price of eggs.

Norman obviously sensed that all wasn’t well and said briskly: “You get yerself ‘ome. It’ll all come out in the wash.”

Ryan managed a faint smile. He’d got no idea what Norman was talking about, but he hoped he was right.


End file.
